Oregon governor forms new committee to advise on massive data center growth
By Alex Baumhardt, Oregon Capital Chronicle
SALEM, Ore. -- Oregon’s governor is organizing a new committee of advisers to weigh in on issues arising from the rapid growth of data centers in the state.
Gov. Tina Kotek announced the new Data Center Advisory Committee on Tuesday and named seven members, who will provide policy recommendations to her and the Legislature no later than October 2026.
Kotek and state lawmakers will use those to create regulations, most likely aimed at where data centers can be built, according to a news release from Kotek’s office. The regulations would aim to protect energy infrastructure and water supplies from being overburdened by the privately run data and AI processing centers, which require massive amounts of energy to run and water for cooling.
“Oregonians have made their concerns about rising utility bills clear. As our state faces rapid growth of data facilities, we must have frank conversations about the challenges and opportunities ahead,” Kotek said in a statement. “I expect the Data Center Advisory Committee to help ensure economic growth while protecting affordable power and Oregon’s critical water resources.”
Oregon’s data center market is among the largest in the nation, according to Chicago-based commercial real estate group Cushman & Wakefield. Access to relatively clean, cheap hydroelectricity in the region and a lack of sales tax, along with billions of dollars in property tax incentives, helped lure the companies.
But the decision to offer those property tax incentives and site a data center is largely a local one, made at the city and county level. The Data Center Advisory Committee is the state’s first big foray into setting data center policy, following several laws that passed in 2025 meant to curb rising electricity rates driven by data centers.
As the giant data complexes expanded across the state during the last several years, energy rates rose on all customer classes served by the state’s private, investor-owned utilities. For residential customers, rates have gone up an average of 50% in the last five years.
Between 2013 and 2023, Oregon’s overall electricity consumption rose by more than 20%, according to a Sightline Institute analysis of U.S. Energy Information Administration data.
“Data centers undoubtedly drove a major share, if not almost all, of this growth,” analysts wrote.
In the next two decades, demand for electricity in the Northwest could double, and demand from data centers is expected to outpace demand from the growing use of electric vehicles until 2046, according to regional energy experts.
Kotek appointed as committee chairs Margaret Hoffmann and Michael Jung. Hoffman is also a member of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, former energy policy adviser to Oregon governors John Kitzhaber and Kate Brown and former rural development director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Oregon. Jung is an environmental policy executive and director of the ICF Climate Center, an international tech and energy consultancy.
Other commission members are:
- Dan Dorran, chair of the Umatilla County Commission. Umatilla has sited a large number of Amazon data centers in the last decade that have caused 554% demand growth at the Umatilla Electric Cooperative, according to Sightline’s analysis.
- Greg Dotson, an energy and environmental law expert at the University of Oregon.
- Bill Edmunds, a former private utility executive who teaches energy and business courses at Portland State University and the University of Portland.
- Tim Miller, director of the nonprofit industry group Oregon Business For Climate.
- Jean Wilson, a renewable energy executive and former president of the nonprofit Oregon Environmental Council.
The group will meet publicly at least once a month and focus on studying data center citing decisions, according to Kotek’s news release. They’ll look at regulations to support how and where data centers could be built to spur “responsible economic development” and job creation, without overburdening local energy and water supplies in the rural communities they tend to be built in.
Here is the governor's full news release:
Governor Kotek Convenes Statewide Data Center Advisory Committee
Advisory group to recommend actions to address issues related to growth of data centers
Salem, OR – Today, Governor Tina Kotek announced the convening of a statewide Data Center Advisory Committee, tasked with developing a set of policy recommendations and actions to address issues of statewide significance associated with the growing expansion of new data centers across Oregon. The Committee’s report will be due to the Governor no later than October 2026.
“Oregonians have made their concerns about rising utility bills clear. As our state faces rapid growth of data facilities, we must have frank conversations about the challenges and opportunities ahead,” Governor Kotek said. “I expect the Data Center Advisory Committee to help ensure economic growth while protecting affordable power and Oregon’s critical water resources.”
The goal of the advisory committee is to develop policy recommendations that will help Oregon to take strategic advantage of the economic development opportunity created by new data centers and other large load industrial consumers of electricity, while striving to keep utility costs, infrastructure upgrades, and environmental impacts sustainable for all Oregonians, particularly low-income and working households and ratepayers. Margaret Hoffmann, Oregon Council Member on the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, and Michael Jung, energy and climate policy professional, will serve as the co-chairs of the advisory committee.
“To have been tapped by Oregon Governor Tina Kotek to serve as a co-chair of the Data Center Advisory Committee is an honor that I humbly accept as a citizen volunteer,” co-chair Jung said. “The Governor has assembled an experienced committee to recommend priorities and actions to chart a path that balances existing priorities and new opportunities."
The advisory committee will conduct an open and public process to understand challenges and opportunities in key policy areas related to the siting of data centers in our state, and then recommend actions that the State of Oregon can take to:
- Encourage data center siting decisions that support responsible economic development, create jobs, and increase long-term revenue that will strengthen our rural communities;
- Understand how the development of data centers affects and can help Oregon meet its climate, clean energy, and natural resource management goals;
- Ensure data centers have reliable energy without burdening Oregon’s ratepayers;
- Protect Oregon’s limited water resources in the face of growing demand from data centers while recognizing available clean water is imperative to both existing economic sectors such as agriculture and the growth of new and more diversified local economies; and,
- Identify key issue areas needing to be addressed in order to develop a policy framework that will help guide the state in the responsible siting of data centers moving forward.
“I am honored to have been appointed by Governor Kotek as a co-chair of the Data Center Advisory Committee,” co-chair Hoffmann said. “The challenges we currently face are complex. I look forward to working with my fellow committee members to understand how we can co-create a vision for Oregon that supports healthy economic development, affordable energy, natural resource abundance, and a future in which all Oregonians can thrive."
The advisory committee is composed of the following members:
Margaret Hoffmann, Northwest Power and Conservation Council, Co-Chair
Michael Jung, Energy and Climate Policy Professional, Co-Chair
Dan Dorran, Commission Chair, Umatilla County
Greg Dotson, Associate Professor, University of Oregon
Bill Edmonds, Adjunct Professor, University of Portland
Tim Miller, Director, Oregon Business for Climate
Jean Wilson, Operating Partner, Sandbrook Capital
See an accompanying Frequently Asked Questions document here.
